The Home Stand, the Trade Deadline and the Curse of Low Expectations

Take out a marker, circle February 24, 2011 on your calendar. As things stand right now, it’s the most important day of the Warriors’ season. The date — the NBA trade deadline — holds significance for the entire league, but it has some extra meaning this year for the Warriors. It’s one day shy of the end of an epic home stand, with the Warriors playing 17 out of 20 games in the friendly confines of the Arena. And regardless of how things go during that very favorable stretch of schedule, it should be the end of the honeymoon period for the Warriors’ new ownership.

We’ve heard for much of the year what a tough schedule the Warriors have had and how judgment should be withheld until the home and away games even out. It’s a fair point, particularly with a team that seems to have far more energy and toughness at home. The home/away disparity, however, is about to even out — and then tip the other direction. The Warriors play 17 of their next 20 games at home. They should be able to put up a .500+ record during this stretch. Even a 12-8 or 13-7 record isn’t totally inconceivable. That type of run would put the Warriors at just under .500 at the trade deadline. And there lies the challenge.

With the Suns fading, the Nuggets getting broken apart and the Blazers burning out, it’s possible that someone from the West sneaks into the playoffs with a .500 record. The Warriors could be right in the hunt by the end of February, which would be an energizing blast for the fanbase. What it should not be, however, is an excuse for standing pat at the trade deadline. There are two clear reasons why taking “in the hunt” as “good enough” at the deadline would be a mistake for the team, and a black mark on the new owners early record.

First, and obviously, the long home stretch is going to be followed by a long road stretch. Of the final 25 games this season, only 9 will be played at home. If the Warriors are just under .500 at the trade deadline, chances are they’ll be further below .500 by the end of the season given the increasing toughness of the schedule. That is, unless they make a move to add more talent to the roster. Changes may be harder to make from a PR perspective during a stretch of winning basketball, but you can’t run a franchise based on short-sighted goals.

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Second, and more fundamentally, this team should not be built to compete for the 8th spot in the playoffs, serving as fodder for the Spurs, Lakers or whoever ends up rising to the top of the pile in the West. Of the players now getting regular minutes, only Curry and Udoh have significant upside. Ellis and Wright are playing extremely well, but it’s unrealistic to expect them to give the Warriors much more. Williams, Lee and Biedrins may play with a bit more consistency, but there’s no reason to think they’ll suddenly become good or even average defenders. The remaining rotation players — Radmanovic, Amundson, Law — aren’t impact players, and are probably at the peak or on the downslope of their NBA careers. So depending how bullish you are on Curry’s and Udoh’s ultimate upside, the Warriors could sit on their hands at the deadline, add a draft pick this summer, and hope to inch up a spot or two in West’s depth chart next year (assuming there is a next year, with no lockout).

Not a totally irrational approach, particularly if you’re trying to maximize attendance while minimize costs, but it’s exactly the type of thinking that’s led the Warriors to the playoffs only once this millennium. It doesn’t take John Wooden to identify what separates the Warriors from the teams at the top of the Western Conference. The best in the NBA play defense. The Warriors don’t. Until that simple fact changes, this team will be an opening act — an entertaining prelude before the real performers get down to business in late April and early May. To shed that identity, the Warriors need new players (and probably a new coach). The trade deadline will be the first major test of the new ownership’s commitment to making those changes.

Lacob, Guber and Riley shouldn’t just make a trade at the deadline for the sake of making one — for example, swapping one expiring contract for another — but there will almost certainly be players changing teams that can make the Warriors better defensively this year and in the years to come. Riley needs to demonstrate that he can orchestrate a deal that addresses that fundamental need, and Lacob and Guber need to be prepared to pay for it. Swapping our expiring deals for a solid two-way rotation player would be a decent incremental move. But to really elevate the Warriors to the next level, at least one of the starters needs to be swapped out for a better defensive player without giving up too much scoring (and passing ability for the backcourt or rebounding ability for the frontcourt). A challenge? Obviously. But if the new owners are going to demand accountability, “we tried like the dickens” can no longer be a substitute for actual improvement.

The Warriors have made plenty of panic moves during losing streaks. The challenge this season will be to make a savvy, strategic move during what should be a stretch of winning basketball. Come the end of February, we may be really optimistic about the prospects of a Curry/Ellis/Wright/Lee/Biedrins-led team, but by the beginning of May, I doubt fans will feel so bullish.

Every NBA team has drafts/trades/offseason acquisition every year. Every team has talents. Kings have talents for years. Clippers had tons of talents last year. Wizards have talents all the time. Thunders had lots of picks.

Why were they bad most of the time than not? why couldn’t they be at least average in the league? When you are average, you go playoffs. hey half of the league go to playoffs.

Why are there coaches turning around a team?
Like how Nellie turned us around by playing all out O with scrappy/scrambling/rotating D. We had talents and Nellie used them and helped them succeed for 1 season

Alot of us are grateful for the playoff year Nellie brought us but him and his system could not sustain. ( the following ran short because of not trusting the bench, overplaying starters, no D full O)

He could well change his system and coaching for more fundamental both way plays, but he refused and now he is gone for better or worse.

Defense always gives you a chance to win regardless your O. Without reliable D, your stellar O cannot even compensate the lose in D like what we had been witnessing in Miami, Magic, and more games this year and so many games for the last 4 years here.

We always had had problems holding onto the lead. This is a fact around the league. That’s why we are a laughing stock around and continue to be.

Changing coach is always risky but it’s necessary when the team underperform with no resilience on fighting/defending the opponents.
It happened to Nellie, and it could happen to Smart.
We need better D players and also we need a better coach for our defense scheme.

I really have no problem if our team lose the game with grit/dignity/hustle/all they had. There is no excuse when they cannot even spend enough energy on 1on1 D, rotation D, hustling, putting their bodies on the line.

I am also tired of hearing Smart’s post game interview “lets move on to the next game, cannot do nothing about this game”

What does that freaking mean? You need to recognize what you did and did not do in this game to help you win this game and then to help you win the future games. Dont chuck it like it’s just one game.
Any plan to address the issue that AB’s lack of aggresiveness and lack of touches of both him and Lee?
Any plan to address the reaching fouls from all of our players?
Any plan to find adjustments in the middle of the game when opponents make a run?
Any plan to find higher % shots than contested 1on1 jumper?
etc.

I want my coach to be talking about that instead of moral victory and let’s moving on.

Simple as that.

Frank

Since Udoh has started to play, during a game I focus virtually all my attention of what he does and compare him to what I see Biedrens doing. With Biedrens I see other teams in many games shooting 50% from the field when he is in the starting unit. One can’t win many games that way.

I can’t emphasize enough that when I watch Udoh play on most possessions during a game when a guy is driving the basket or a big is taking a shot, or is providing weak side help, he is a factor even if the player makes the shot, and often alters or blocks a shot. I find myself hoping the opponent will take inside for in my mind with him on the court, it plays to our strength. It this occurs with such regularity even within one game that I believe I have seen enough of a sample, albeit he has only limited playing time. That is not say he doesn’t make mistakes, but the mistakes he makes is one of judgment that all players make. For if he provides weakside help and doesn’t block the shot he is vulnerable to being called for a foul or not being in position to garner the rebound if the ball doesn’t go in. And this is a split time decision everytime. Sometimes he will guess right, sometimes not. But most often I feel like I would rather see a guy try to alter a shot rather then hoping there will be a rebound. To put it bluntly, Udoh has blown me away with what he can do. I can’t believe his toughness, quickness, ability to jump, and rarely can I see his arms move they are so quick. And as a result often he is not called for fouls for I suspect what he does is so quick it doesn’t register on the refs.

With Biedrens, most often he is nowhere near where he should be and we readily don’t blame him for the opponents scoring when in fact if he had been aggressive like Udoh, the opponent may not have scored.

TheCity

alberto @ 10 and in general,

I’m not here to hype the accomplishments of Reilly as GM. But I also think it’s unfair to judge him on what he accomplished this last off season due to the fact that he was hindered in making any wholesale changes due to the change of ownership.

high dribble dribble

on tonight’s game, like Mr Mully i’m expecting a big effort tonight resulting in a win and some grossly over-stated optimism tomorrow

the destruction of the Cavs last night will only make the Lakers overconfident against the Ws — Ws will never have a better chance, they’re healthy, on perfect rest and should be desperate to wipe away the Clipper performance

if GMoney is right and the Lakes route the Ws then i think it will say a lot about how soft this team is and to me that will fall, in part, on the coach

Our Team

TheCity: Fair enough, but has Riley in his career done enough to justify him being the top basketball guy in an NBA Organization? I’m not saying necessarily to fire the guy, but you can’t entrust your team to him–his resume is pretty void as a talent evaluator or top Administrator. At some point, when the right person is available, Lacob needs to add someone above Riley. Until that happens, don’t trade SC/ME/DL.

Frank

One final point on rebounds.In the Clippers game, Biedrens and Udoh both average a rebound every four minutes, not particulary spectacular for either player. The Clippers garnered four more possessions then the Warriors via offensive rebounds, which was offset by the Warriors commiting three less turnovers. So even though neither Biedrens or Udoh did well on the boards, clearly other Warriors were garnering missed shots. Who cares who gets the rebounds as long as we get them. So rebounds had virtually nothing to do with the outcome of the game..

Both teams shot 39% from the field and the Clippers poor shooting was largely due to Udoh’s play not Biedrens. For when Biedrens was on the court, at least in the first half, the Clippers shot over 50% and when Udoh was on the court 30%. A small sample, but a telling one, just as in the NO game. Demonstrating that Udoh keeps the ball from going in the hoop, Biedrens doesn’t. Do posters still want to emphasize the differences in rebounds between Biedrens and Udoh and claim that Biedrens is a better player? Of course not.

The reason there was a big disparity in the score is because the Clippers got to the foul line way more then Warriors and made their free throws.

I like to look at the play to play stats to see how one player did defensively as compared to another player being on the court. I realize the FG% another team shoots may have nothing to do with either players defense as a hot outside shooter may be hitting when one player is on the court then when another player is on the court. But, the mere fact that in many games, one teams is only shooting 30% when Udoh is on the court and the other team is shooting 50% when Biedrens is on the court, confirms what I am seeing with my own eyes.

believewhat

Frank,

“Biedrens is not part of the Warriors ever becoming a championship team.”

On that topic, I don’t see anyone on this team as top 3 players on a championship team.

TheCity

SoCal, you’ve said it:

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. The Mercury News needs to get better software for this blog. I’ve been to blogs where you can just ‘ignore’ a person’s posts, so you don’t ever have to see them. Wouldn’t that be SWEET!

I’m past being tired of reading miscreant posts here.

believewhat

meir,

somehow while scrolling I saw a comment attributed to me,

“one guy above called him a combo of Nash amd Ray Allen (Believe at 39), ”

now see my statement in futuristic context, I read it again and found that I didn’t go over board on Curry.

” To me, Curry hybrid of Ray Allen+Nash. Either he will more of Ray Allen and less of Nash or Vice versa, we need to see. But, either way, I like Curry. I don’t think Ws should make Curry untouchable but give me Chris Paul, I will trade Curry.”

TheCity

G$ – I don’t want Yao either. He’s overspent – he doesn’t get enough rest from Basketball playing all year for the NBA and then the rest of the year in China. It’s fine for players to occasionally play on national or olympic teams, but imo this behaviour has worn out Yao over the years.

high dribble dribble

i’d much rather roll the dice with Oden versus Yao — even if there was just a 1 in 3 chance that Oden would be healthy it would be a big gamble, but a gamble worth taking to bid exceptionally high on him – – worst case is that portland is forced to match

TheCity

OurTeam, yeah I agree with most of what you said, thanks

Frank

Bryhsiao,101: Well said with regard to what you want to see a coach do during a Warrior game and what Smart is not doing. I can’t draw a conclusion about his defensive schemes, except for letting perimeter opponent go unguarded which seems just plain wrong.

When he plays Udoh the majority of time at center, we can then, I believe, evaluate his defensive schemes as presently he doesn’t start good interior defenders.

earl monroe

I say we try to get the “YAO” or Ming as some people are wont to call him here. Imagine if we start Lin, Yao or Ming and Lee, its going to be crazy at the arena, all of chinatown will empty out on game nights and I mean both chinatowns. OMG! OMG!
Fitzgerald says:
“Lin top of the circle, looking in for Yao, Yao is covered by Yi, swings it over to Lee, Lee throws it into Yao MIng, Yao fakes into the middle and takes a short fade away jumper, its in”

OMG! OMG!

earl monroe

Salivation, and I am not talking of the PHO variety!

earl monroe

I may start my own blog on this topic, and it will have the option for bloggers to choose which posters they do not want to read

earl monroe

If this blog had the option to turn off certain posters, who would most of you turn off?

earl monroe

I’m bout to fix myself some nachos and watch the game in bout an hour and a half

bryhsiao

Frank, I like your optimism on Udoh since I like him alot too.
but I believe he will have a wakening moment real soon once he found that most of the time he comes out to challenge opponent guards shots, they end up dishing off to whoever he was guarding for a easy 2.

Watch tonight, and see how Kobe will smartly drop it off to Gasol/Bynum after easy penetration and seeing Udoh coming out extending his arm on him.
I love Udoh, but our D sucks as a whole. AB is part of the problems but he once was active and challenging shots inside and getting burned over and over either by the dishoff or getting into foul trouble.

Our players have to stop reaching and start playing chest to chest D.
And they need to learn how to just harass/alter the shot enough and box out for the reb. You need to give your team and its rebounders a chance before you just plain fouled the guy.

When we talk about defense, it’s not like we have to block every shot, deny penetration every time, steal every ball.
We simply need to just disrupt the opponents offense and get them out of their comfort zone and play honest and close defense “without” resorting to always foul.

I only want to see our players stay with his man and make sure have his hands up on the shooter’s face/near the shot to make him uncomfortable. Just challenge the shot instead of being 4 feet away watching.
Same thing with our interior D. Dont swipe but “JUMP” and go for the ball.
If you find it’s already too late, or the guy is too strong, wrap him up and lock his arms up and make your foul count.
Once the shot is fired on its way to the basket, you turn around and put your arms around the shooter/your man and wait for the rebound.

If the shot goes in anyway, tip your hat a little to your opponent this time and turn around go on O and wait for the next D possession to try again to stop them.

Is this really too much to ask?
I see many other average to good teams do this night in and night out to us. What’s it that we are missing to not be able to even do things so fundamental like this??

Am I delusional about the difficulty of this?

Jules

Tired… go take that corner of the blog room over there – pronto! You stay there on time out, for 5 enduring minutes… you hear?

Shame on you for making an old school coot cry out of its wits… with all those knock out round punches… don’t you know those blows can cause bobble head syndrome? Nasty!

The head is still bobbling… gravity must not have any effect in stopping it, eh?

Isn’t there a law on such gravity… such constance circumstance?

I knew Newton once… he was a friend of mine.

I bought stock in the Apple… still waiting for it to fall…

But, I can watch the Ws fall tonight.

Jules

Yoots!

Dave in LA

Off topic a bit but I just checked out the Lakers Blue and Gold Blog at LA Times (Mark Medina). To be quite honest, even with all the inane backbiting and repetitive trade crapola we occasionally endure from some of our resident crazies, this blog and all the “confederacy of dunces” therein is far and away superior to the dreck that the Lakers fans put out. Guess if we can’t beat em on the court, at least we can beat em on the blog!

Thanks to Adam and all for keeping the lifeline out for those of us stuck in LA! Go Warriors….Beat LA!!!!

Dave in LA

Correction…Purple and Gold Blog…. (like I care..)

The Oracle

Tired

Playoffbound

Beans: 3 rebounds and 2 points (25 minutes)… OUCH!!!!

thewarriorsrule

bring back carney (he was one of our best wing defenders), give more minutes to lin, udoh, bwright, less to reggie, radman, law, fire smart, and bring in jeff van gundy. he will get us to play disciplined defense…

sky hoops

The thing that needs to be done is to either get a superstar or set up to get a superstar talent. What a lot of people here are forgetting is that you can only win championships in basketball with superstar talent…usually two such players on one team. And since the warriors don’t have a superstar, none seems to be available besides melo who I don’t think is a winner, they should be putting themselves in a position to acquire a superstar byshedding salary or he’ll, tank the rest of the season for a high draft pick.

shobbrobb

It seems like this owner is no better than the last,This team has done nothing but add jeremy Lin….WTF!

purvisshort

Saw Lin play a D-League game recently. He had a tough game. It did not look like he was any better than ther others.

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